Pit Stop Racing: Manager is a simulation game of sorts. Players control most of what’s going on but on a shallow level: as your car races around the track you can only choose when to use a boost and pit stop, and the car itself and the engineers who work on it can be improved upon but you yourself don’t perform the upgrade. Your role, then, is to ensure the car’s specs are up-to-date and that the engineers are doing their job, much like a team boss would.
In order to upgrade your vehicle and engineers you need to collect three things: stars, dollars, and gold coins. Stars are collected after every lap you complete of the track and other car you pass, and can then be spent on your upgrades. Dollars are won after winning competitions, and can be used on research that in turn increases your rewards. Gold coins are the most valuable and thus scarce in-game currency, and can give you special boosts during a race. Once you begin to collect enough of these your car and team improve, meaning you can take on the bigger competitions and continue to increase your money. What helps is that, even away from the app, your vehicle continues to race on the practice lap, earning you stars. If you want to speed things up, sponsors can be purchased with actual money and enhance your rewards.
For such a seemingly-simple game, Pit Stop Racing: Manager packs a lot into its gameplay. Each competition is split into five separate races, and 20 competitions in total means players have 100 races to work their way through. There are 20 cars to unlock ranging from trucks to supercars, and each one brings with it new upgrading opportunities. Even the eight unlockable engineers can be upgraded through a multitude of levels.
However, longevity doesn’t necessarily translate into a fun and rewarding experience, and for all its features and available upgrades, Pit Stop Racing: Manager fails to be any more exciting than an actual NASCAR race. With control over just the speed boost and timing of the pit stop – a move that’s needed every ten laps (a minute or two) – you’re often left staring at your car continuously circuiting around the same lap. The ability to double the speed helps somewhat, but if anything it only means you can’t go and make a quick cup of tea instead of watching. During the first few races this isn’t an issue, but the harder stages require dozens of laps to be completed; the last championship contains 500 laps – play at your peril. Ideally there would be an option to skip the race completely in the same way you can allow a game on Football Manager to play out without your guidance.
Even without having to watch the race, though, almost every feature of each car in Pit Stop Racer: Manager can be upgraded right away. So many stars are rewarded even outside of a competition that it takes away the element of tactical decision-making, and makes the game so easy. It’s a shame, because it has the making of a good game, but, if anything, gives the player too much control.
[appbox googleplay com.gabangmanstudio.psrmanager]
[appbox appstore id1246080229]
